Om Shanti Om (DVD)

Om Shanti Om is a Hindi language (Bollywood) film which was released in November 2007 surrounded by huge publicity. The film stars Shahrukh Khan as Om and Deepika Padukone (in her debut role) as Shanti/Sandi, with Arjun Rampal as Mukesh/Mike. Supporting cast include Kiron Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Bindu, Satish Shah, Javed Sheikh and Yuvika Chaudhry. The film was directed and written by Farah Khan who also had a lot on input into the screenplay as well ...
...of her latest film (named Om Shanti Om) and discovers a horrid truth. He is devastated but not as much so when shortly afterwards he sees Mukesh trying to burn Shanti alive as she is pregnant and he can't afford for his shining star to let the rest of the industry know she's married let alone pregnant. Om tries to save her and tragedy strikes.

30 years later and we're in the present day Bollywood. Om has been reincarnated and is a ... more

Om Shanti Om is a Hindi language (Bollywood) film which was released in November 2007 surrounded by huge publicity. The film stars Shahrukh Khan as Om and Deepika Padukone (in her debut role) as Shanti/Sandi, with Arjun Rampal as Mukesh/Mike. Supporting cast include Kiron Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Bindu, Satish Shah, Javed Sheikh and Yuvika Chaudhry. The film was directed and written by Farah Khan who also had a lot on input into the screenplay as well as being the film's choreographer and it was directed by Shahrukh Khan and his wife Gauri Khan. The film has a 12 certification and runs for about 160 minutes.

In 1970s Bombay, Om, a small time actor, dreams of being a big Bollywood star and is infatuated with Shanti who is the biggest leading lady in the industry of the time. He manages to get close to her as due to an accident on set he ends up saving her from a fire. They become friends, he hopes to be more until he overhears her having a heated discussion with Mukesh, the director of her latest film (named Om Shanti Om) and discovers a horrid truth. He is devastated but not as much so when shortly afterwards he sees Mukesh trying to burn Shanti alive as she is pregnant and he can't afford for his shining star to let the rest of the industry know she's married let alone pregnant. Om tries to save her and tragedy strikes.

30 years later and we're in the present day Bollywood. Om has been reincarnated and is a huge Bollywood star who is rather spoilt and arrogant, always arriving late on set and refusing to do retakes when his scenes go wrong (which is often). He has a phobia of fire which he doesn't understands and then one day he starts having flashbacks of his past life and starts to obsess about having to put things right. He needs to find a new Shanti so he can take revenge on Mukesh who 3 decades on has just returned from working in Hollywood and calls himself "Mike"! Will Om find his Shanti and get shanti (peace)? Will "Mike" get his just desserts?

Firstly I have to tell you that I haven't enjoyed a Bollywood film this much in a long time. There - I've now told you that I think this is a fabulous film, I could stop here but oh I have so much to say about Om Shanti Om and you have to hear me out! Are you sitting comfortably?

I was in India on holiday about a week after this film was released and I heard the title song "Om Shanti Om" being played pretty much everywhere I went and posters up of the film everywhere and people talking about the film on the streets, in shops, in bars even, just about wherever I went. I found myself humming the tune and thinking it might be a religious film due to Om Shanti Om generally being a Hindu chant.

I was up in the mountains of Sikkim in a monastery when I heard small Buddhist lamas singing "Om Shanti Om" as they ran softly across the grounds of the monastery and I was intrigued. I asked our driver to find out how these little lamas aged between 5 and 10 knew the song, so he asked an adult monk who said most of them had been to the cinema to see the film and were crazy about the songs as it was such a wonderful uplifting film. I found this very enchanting to hear from Buddhist monks and decided I had to see this film as soon as I could.

All I could gather from the publicity and what others who'd seen the film had told me was that it was about a regular guy who dreams of being a big star and comes back in his next life as one with the love of his life in a reversed role. Reincarnation is involved but not in a big way. It's not preachy in the least but it really is a fun film to watch. Shahrukh is Bollywood's superman at the moment, whatever he does seems to do well and this film is no exception. I found him as charming as ever in the film both in his 70s character as the smitten wannabe actor and in his modern day megastar role too.

This was Deepika Padukone's first film and I guess she'll do well in future films as her role in this film will surely put her on the map. I think she was about 19 in real life when this was filmed, although I'm not sure how old her character is supposed to be, mid 20s possible... She's portrayed mostly as a dreamy character during the first half of the film so not a lot of acting is expected of her, just cute smiles and dimples, that sort of thing… In the latter part of the film, she plays an inexperienced actress so it was art imitating real life as they say. I guess it wasn't necessary to have a big name for the leading lady as the film is a Shahrukh Khan vehicle all the way!

Arjun Rampal as the evil director Mukesh was fun to watch. He doesn't often play the bad guy as he's definitely leading man material and I do have a soft spot for him as he is so very gorgeous but he pulled off the bad guy role with relish. He camped it up a bit where necessary and played the evil schemer with ease. I've heard he's being nominated for Best Villain for his role, good luck to him. Personally speaking, I think he's far too cute to be too believable as the villain…

Shreyas Talpade was a pretty good supporting actor as Om's best friend in the 70s and the aged pal in the present day. All good Bollywood films have a best buddy character for the leading man and of course, being a bit of a spoof film, how could they not have a best buddy for the main man? Kiron Kher played Om's mother - she's a good actress and this is the first time I've seen her doing a fairly comedic role - at the start of the film she plays Om's mother who was at one time a wannabe actress too! The first scene you see her in she seems to be really over-acting about being worried about Om until you realise she is over-acting when Om scolds her for over-acting! Confused? You should be!

The film seems to have fun poking fun at itself; Bollywood stars and their penchant for so many things like being married to other celebrities in secret but not letting the world know in case it affects their popularity, about how stars behave in front of the cameras and behind them, about how stars behave off camera at awards ceremonies. There was literally a plethora of big names appearing in the film as themselves and it was brilliant to try to recognise as many as I could for the few moments they appeared on screen during an awards ceremony and during a film launch such as Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Preity Zinta, Bipasha Basu, Bobby Deol, Jeetendra, Karishma Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Govinda, Shabana Azmi, Kajol, Rekha, Tabu, Rani Mukherjee, Amisha Patel, Zayed Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Sunil Shetty, Kareena Kapoor and Shilpa Shetty. I was quite curious about the people who didn't appear as guest stars in the film such as Aamir Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Ajay Devgan and John Abraham, but it seems they mostly had filming commitments elsewhere at the time of this being filmed! If Arjun Rampal wasn't already in the film as the villain of the piece, I would have wondered where he was too! It was brilliant that so many big names were spoofed in the film and nice to see a Bollywood director at last being able to poke fun at stars and actually have many of those stars in the film themselves as cameos!

The story is very pleasant and entertaining; I can honestly say there were no scenes which could have been cut out to make the film better. The comedy scenes were provided by the main stars and for once, not that idiotic Johnny Lever and the scenes were genuinely funny. For example, when Om is filming a scene where he flies through the air to meet the bad guy, you see several crew members pushing him on a trolley in a superman pose - this scene had me roaring with laughter. The scenes in the 70s where Om gatecrashes a film premiere pretending to be a big star with his hand over his face and when asked for proof of identity he shows some ID with the hand over the face (this was the trademark of one of Bollywood's actual stars of the 70s). Also the flares and the bright coloured outfits and long collared shirts and oh so much bling - all so fantastic overall to watch and chuckle at!

Om Shanti Om was filmed pretty much inside the various Bollywood studios in Bombay (or Mumbai as it's now known as). Being a film about film stars, there really was no need for external filming locations and it was fun to see the various sets used during the film, some of them over the top and extravagant and some a bit rundown. This is the first time a film like this has been attempted as far as I know and I'm sure it's going to be talked about by Bollywood fans for a long time to come.

Again for the first time in ages the film has an excellent soundtrack with all the songs worth listening to over and over (I think for me the last time I could say this was with Veer Zaara). The music is by Vishal-Shekhar and the songs range from soulful melodies such as "Aankhon Mein Teri" (meaning "In Your Eyes"), the fast paced "Dard-e-Disco" a peppy dance track for which Shahrukh Khan worked out for 3 months to get his abs looking perfect, then there's "Main Agar Kahoon" a soft lullaby by Sonu Nigam and not forgetting the unforgettable toe-tapping beats of Deewangi Deewangi in which no less than 30 big Bollywood names appear! Not surprising then that the composer won the Asian Film Awards 2008 in Hong Kong.

If you want to buy a DVD of the film you can get it from Play.com for £9.99 or from Amazon for £12.98 or you could try renting it from your usual DVD rental source.

I would definitely recommend Om Shanti Om and I would definitely watch it again myself. I would give the film a strong 9.5 out of 10, I'm not even sure why I won't give it a 10 out of 10 - maybe you could watch it yourself and see how you'd rate it? 

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